Guinea

A reporter interviewed the neighbors and friends of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s victim and paints a picture of a quiet, religious woman whose social network was the French African community in Harlem, NYC. Via Worldcrunch from Le Figaro…

By Renaud Girard
LE FIGARO/ Worldcrunch

NEW YORK – The alleged sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the now former head of the International Monetary Fund, has been major worldwide news. But it has hit especially hard in New York’s French-speaking African community, home to the Guinean woman employed as a maid at the Sofitel Hotel where she says the 62-year-old French politician sexually assaulted her.

In the heart of Harlem, a small grocery store offers a flavor of Africa. The plump 45-year-old woman owner, Ms. A, who gives her customers a warm welcome in impeccable French, wears a long traditional green-colored African dress, and a turban made out of the same fabric is wrapped round her hair. Born in Guinea, she is a Muslim woman who belongs to the Mandinka ethnic group. The alleged victim is from northern Guinea, and her ethnicity is Fulani.

But Renaud Girard puts a troubling spin on this story. The victim has had the misfortune to embarrass a man whose social power is felt in Africa as well as France– a man whose financial reach allows him to invade every aspect of his victim’s past and find any weakness in her social network that he can exploit…

“Make no mistake, this affair brings shame upon her family. In Africa, the parties involved would have solved this problem in secret,” says [victim’s friend, Amadou] N’Diaye. “From now on, two lives have been unnecessarily ruined, (the victim’s) life and DSK’s life. DSK is a man who the French-speaking African community appreciates a lot.”

At Restaurant 2115, people show solidarity with the alleged victim, but nobody is eager to condemn DSK. Africans who live in New York think that the charges “will not hold up.” “How could a 62-year-old man, who is not athletic at all, have forced a 32-year-old woman, who is tall and muscular from her manual work, to have sexual relations with him?” one wondered.

Amadou imagines a scenario in which “three very different cultures clash.” The French culture of DSK, who made an extremely inappropriate move in suite 2806, but who called the hotel while heading for the airport, unaware that he had committed a crime. The culture of modesty of a pious Funali woman, who did not expose the crime and who did not confide her shame to the Sofitel Hotel’s management, but was rather found sobbing by her coworkers, who then called the police. The “Prussian” culture of the American police in which things are either black or white, with no gray areas.

This is so telling. Some of the French women who have come forward with stories of DSK’s abuse of power were clearly prevented by social pressure from speaking sooner. Great social pressure will be brought to bear on the victim and her family, even if they are not tempted by money.

Although she did no wrong, she and her family are ‘shamed’. That it was such an important man who attacked her is more shame. Did she fight back hard enough? Was it necessary to ‘ruin his life’? Should she have borne her shame in silence? Should he have been set free to victimize more women?

And the American police– was it for them to decide that this affair should be covered up? Show due deference to a very important person? Perhaps take a tip for services rendered? Would that be less ‘Prussian’ and more ‘French’?

I asked someone who knows a lot about sexual assault cases whether the accused can give a victim money to drop the charges. She said that it’s not legal to do that outright, but that the state would have a much harder time prosecuting a case if the victim refused to testify, and it was not uncommon for this to happen in fact. Offering a victim’s family a bribe is witness tampering.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn is innocent until proved guilty. I thought that given the evidence and the conduct of the victim he would eventually be convicted. But considering the misogyny that exists in so many communities, and its power to isolate and blame victims, I have more doubts now. The social power DSK used on high-status French women might be brought to bear on a poor working community until they are willing to sacrifice one of their own.
‘Do you know who I am?’ he allegedly asked as he assaulted his victim. She didn’t then, she only feared for her dignity and her job. This man could do her more harm than she ever imagined. No one should have that kind of power. If the law means anything, it must protect the humble against the arrogant and ruthless.

Assistant DA Joan Illuzzi-Orbon said in a response letter that prosecutors were “troubled that you chose to inject into the public record your claim that you possess information that might negatively impact the case and ‘gravely’ undermine the credibility of the victim.”
“We are aware of no such information,” she added. “If you really do possess the kind of information you suggest that you do, we trust you will forward it immediately to the District Attorney’s Office.”

I think we passed the point where any woman alleging rape had to have her whole life examined for purity. I don’t think there’s much in the victim’s past that will change the picture, but everyone has trouble in life, and the letter from the defense sounds like blackmail.